The world of politics has always been dominated by those who are able to leverage emotive language most effectively. Often, language that elicits feelings of terror is particularly productive, especially when pesky notions such as “facts” and “logic” get in the way.
And, in recent years, there’s one specific example that towers above others: “War!”
‘PRECIPICE OF COLLAPSE’: PUTIN FACING ‘IRREVERSIBLE’ DEFEAT AS TROOPS ABANDON SHIP
Take Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), one of several outgoing politicians vying to become the latest recipient of the legacy media’s “strange new respect” in exchange for providing a reliable stream of anti-Republican sentiment on demand. Over the weekend, Kinzinger got involved in a somewhat bizarre exchange with Dan McLaughlin, a senior writer for National Review, during which the congressman declared that we are in a “1938 moment” and condemned McLaughlin’s supposed lack of anti-Russian sentiment.
Now, in 1938, Hitler’s forces marched into Austria, while Britain, France, and Italy agreed to Germany’s partition of Czechoslovakia. Meanwhile, in 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin has called for the forcible annexation of four regions of Ukraine: Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia.
Setting aside the absurdity of painting McLaughlin as pro-Putin, we must ask: By comparing the growing expansion of Nazi Germany prior to World War II to Russia’s undeniable aggression against Ukraine, what is Kinzinger’s goal?
It’s simple: The goal is to turn this complicated geopolitical issue into a binary “good versus bad” routine, throughout which you must either be “for” the good guys or “for” the bad guys, with “good” and “bad” defined by figures such as Kinzinger. In such a system, not only is there no room for even the smallest shred of nuance, but nuance is actively portrayed as proof of one’s moral corruption.
Of course, none of this is true. For example, it is possible, all while believing that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is wrong, to criticize handing over seemingly limitless resources to Ukraine — often referred to as the most corrupt country in Europe — with no clear strategy for bringing the conflict to an end.
But these undeniably gray areas are simply a hassle for politicians who can’t wait to dust off their favorite green stamp for the federal government’s latest financial giveaway, and they would rather not waste time having to argue in favor of their proposals. It’s so much easier to shrug and smear any critics as pro-Putin traitors.
However, this failure of logic is not limited to Kinzinger alone. If anything, comparing any contentious and complex political issue to a rising physical threat is the norm.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
COVID-19 was routinely described using the language of conflict, for which unquestioning societal sacrifice was required to beat our microscopic enemy. Climate change is presented as an existential threat, with those who question the efficacy of state-run “solutions” guilty of compounding such a threat. And even the political opponents of the current regime — described as “Ultra MAGA” or “semi-fascists” — are compared to the Nazis of 1930s Germany themselves.
Beyond the worsening of hyperbole, there’s a real problem here: Politicians are intentionally dragging discourse into the world of the physical. It might be a shortcut in the realm of debate, but when debates become physical in rhetoric, they become physical in practice. One wonders whether Kinzinger and others will care when innocent Americans bear the consequences of such language.
Ian Haworth (@ighaworth) is the host of Off Limits with Ian Haworth.
